The use of online journaling as a qualitative methods datasource

During the Modern period most people
achieved a basic level of education, opening up modes of writing including
contexts of first person perspectives and autobiographies.Weintraub (1995) states “the autobiographic
genre took on its full dimension and richness when Western Man acquired a
thoroughly historical understanding of his existence.”Once this level of understanding was achieved
it was possible for humans to consider their existence within individual
contexts.

Breines (1989) identifies that “human
action can be understood only in terms of the relationships that it generates
with the world.”From a pragmatic
perspective, Breines states that a person’s ability to ‘connect’ with the world
is dependent upon active and meaningful engagement with the environment.Not only is this a functional outcome for the
individual, but it is also a functional outcome for all of society.Writing provides a means toward both of these
ends as it provides a medium for interactivity between the inner world of ideas
and the outer world of reality.Sartre
(1949) stated that all good writing is social writing and is illuminated and
constructed through the writer-reader ‘relationship.’By this definition, I can’t write as a lone
individual – there must be some ‘Other’ that answers or responds to my
assertions.In this sense, writing
becomes an act of witness, and a medium for self-affirmation.Modern theorists refer to this as a dialogic
learning process (Nour, 2014).

Even the seemingly disconnected medium of
diary writing is a connected social discourse.This is particularly evident in the opening salutation that is so common
in journal writing: ‘Dear Diary…’Anne
Frank addressed her diary as “Kitty” which was a personalization of her
discourse where she stated:

It’s
an odd idea for someone like me to keep a diary; not only because I have never
done so before, but because it seems to me that neither I—nor for that matter
anyone else—will be interested in the unbosomings of a thirteen-year-old
schoolgirl. Still, what does that matter? I want to write, but more than that,
I want to bring out all kinds of things that lie buried deep in my heart”
(Frank, 1952).

Although Ann did not
believe that anyone would be interested in her story, her diary has been
translated into nearly every modern language.

An appropriate following question would be
‘Why would people be interested in
the private writings of another person?’ Bunkers and Huff (1996) explain that
"diaries are not so much inclusive because they contain everything from a
given day, as they are inclusive in the sense that they do not privilege
'amazing' over 'ordinary' events."This celebration of the ‘ordinary’ is a longstanding theme in
understanding meaningful occupation.Diary writing and diary reading provides a vehicle of social
connectedness through the ordinary.This
is a human need and is the basis of interactivity between the writer and the
reader.

The use of the diary as an interactive
tool provides an example of what Rowles (1991) describes as a ‘surveillance
zone,’ or an extension of personal space that has multiple uses.These zones surround individuals and act as
an area of potential socialization and contact with others.Through the use of a diary, a surveillance
zone may serve as an extension of a person’s self-definition and identity.Reflective journaling has been used by
educators as a learning tool.Thomas
(2015) used journals to collect qualitative data on the experiences of nursing
students.The widely cited Kolb Model
(1974) has reflexivity embedded in the learning cycle; journaling in all of its
forms meets the criteria for reflective methodology.As an additional example, Garrouste-Orgeas,
et al (2014) demonstrated the power of journaling in an ICU context and how a
collective diary helped to facilitate communication and develop an ongoing
narrative about experiences shared between families and staff.

Online diaries provide a postmodern
methodology for studying social spaces and interactions.The term ‘postmodern’ is appropriate in this
instance because it describes a virtual context where local environments and
local relationships are no longer the basis of interactivity. Rather, people congregate online at virtual
places (websites) where information is shared and where writing occurs.The nature of online interactivity includes,
or even forces, dependence on the written form for communication.Some researchers are beginning to explore
virtual methods as a good source for narrative data for research studies.Henker, Whalen, & Jamner (2002)
identified anxiety patterns in a population of teenage girls through analysis
of online journals and later adapted this virtualtechnique to monitor the caregiving stress of
parents who have children diagnosed with ADHD (Whalen, Odgers, Reed, &
Henker (2011).

The proliferation of online writing
anecdotally attests to the enjoyment of interactive journaling in a virtual
context. In addition to online diaries
there are other ways that writing can act as an extension of Rowles’
‘surveillance zones.’For example, Stern
(2002, 2004) discussed the opportunity of the Internet home pages as a forum
for young women to create a narrative of their experiences.This narrative becomes a performance of their
lived culture and provides a means of self-expression.Chandler (1998) applies the Levi-Strauss
concepts of bricolage in describing the process that people use in construction
of their online identities through authorship of their web pages.The new virtual context, essentially
described by its reliance on the interactivity of writing on the Internet, is a
powerful and important forum for individual self-expression.Dillon (2010) expanded on this method by
using online journaling in place of interviews for understanding the
self-identity construct in adolescents.It is interesting to note that online journaling was initially studied
in context of teenage girls and college student learning; researchers are still
developing best methods for advantaging these large datasets for other
populations.

Conclusion

The Internet will continue to have a
significant impact on the occupation of writing in the future.Hypertext allows people to write in a
non-sequential post-structuralist format, such as was advocated for by Derrida;
hypertext also meets the demands of multivocality, intertextuality and
de-centeredness (Landow, 1992).Individual self-determinism in narrative construction is important to
consider in context of the ethical reading and interacting of such online
datasets (Buitelaar, 2014).

The occupation of writing has been critical
in social and individual development of human beings.Writing offers a rich source of narrative
information for understanding our historicity and for conducting inquiries into
other occupations.The accessible format
of online journaling and the associated proliferation of journaling websites
are both instant sources of data for qualitative studies.

References:

Breines,
E.B. (1989). Making a difference: A premise of occupation and health, American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 43,
51-52.

Nouri,
A. (2014). Dialogic learning: A social cognitive neuroscience view.
International Journal of Cognitive Research in Science, Engineering, and
Education, 2(2), 87-92.Retrieved
1/17/17 at http://ijcrsee.com/index.php/ijcrsee/article/view/119/276

Rowles,
G.D. (1991). Beyond performance:Being
in place as a component of occupational therapy,American
Journal of Occupational Therapy, 45, 265-271.

Comments

Thanks for sharing Chris. The topic relates nicely to the work we are doing in Buffalo with transition age youth - utilizing website development as an intervention. Essentially engaging youth in journaling and other online visual expressive activities - using images, video and hyperlink/hypertext within personal websites. Your article will help serve as a good reference for us. Here's a link that shows some of the work from several years ago: http://www.web-kids.org/web-kids-project.html. We (Sharon Cavanaugh, OTR at some UB students) also published a brief article about our work at Baker Victory Services in Lackawanna NY (SIS Practice Quarterly November 2016, Volume 1, Issue 4)

New York State Office of Mental Health recently invited us to present our "WebKids" project to their staff in Albany next month, and we are hoping to pilot the project with adults within PROS programs as well (I'd love to get some OT students involved in that in Rochester area, hint hint). I think this could be a great way for OT practitioners to address mental health as well as transition planning.

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